I’ve gained weight in my 30s, which is fine and all, except that I haven’t figured out how to wear it yet. The biggest problem with being overweight as a woman is that it makes you look approachable and maternal. I am neither of those things and no one used to mistake me for them, but increasingly, I find myself extremely publicly accessible in a way I have never wanted to be. Read More

I bought a house in the Texan suburbs. If you’re my age and you haven’t bought property yet, you likely think you can’t afford it. Well, let me tell you: you can’t. No one can. Buying a house is stupid. Read More

Well, I have sort of an unofficial rule not to do two of these books posts in a row without something else in between them, because I don’t want it to seem like all I do is read, but…all I do is read.

Also, since I’ve started doing these, I’ve now developed a compulsion to write something here about every book I read, regardless of whether it’s of any interest to anyone or not. For a bit, I thought maybe I’d just stop! But I feel like this stack of read books is burning a hole through my desk, waiting to be blogged about. I feel like if I don’t blog that I’ve read them, I haven’t read them, in the same way I now feel like I haven’t taken a walk if my Fitbit didn’t record it. It is truly a golden age for neurotic obsessives!

I read 57 books in 2017, although I don’t necessarily count every book I read as a “book.” I also read some business books and some children’s books and things that I didn’t keep track of. Here’s what I read in the last few months of 2017 and January:

Last weekend, my friend and colleague, Zandy Ring, and I spoke at WordCamp US in Nashville. Our topic was “Remote Control: Establishing Accountability and Expectations in a Distributed Environment.” Here is our blurb:

I didn’t expect my last post to be so popular! It’s made me nervous to post again, because I definitely won’t write anything as good — to all my new followers, so that you know what to expect, I blog about once a month. These days, I tend to write about 1/3 each feminist rants, book reviews, and pointless essays about minor things in my life. And then about twice a year I write something about travel. Most everything I write is extremely long.

I have a confession that’s a bit too long for Twitter: whenever I’m standing close to someone, no matter who they are or what the context is, I think about licking their face and how godawful socially the aftermath of that would be. It’s similar to how when you’re standing on a high place, you think about jumping off: that this very simple thing that would take two seconds and that you could easily do for no reason at all would ruin everything.